E1. Biodiversity data for decision making

a. Cumulative number of records

b. Number of publicly accessible records at 1km2
resolution or better

Type: State indicator

Indicator Description

Good policy making and evaluation is based on evidence.
Millions of biological observations (records) have been recorded in
the UK over the past century by a wide variety of organisations and
individuals. This indicator provides an evaluation of the
number of records added to the National Biodiversity Network
(NBN)Gateway in a
particular year, and the resolution of those data, as a proxy for
the evidence available to underpin conservation decision
making.

Summary

The number of records within the National Biodiversity Network
Gateway has increased from 15 million at the start of 2004 to 68.7
million at the start of 2012, and to 131.3 million at the end of
March 2017, at which time the Gateway closed and was replaced by
the NBN Atlas. Since the start of 2012 there has been an
increase of 62.5 million records.

The number of publicly accessible records which are at
1km2 resolution or better increased from 10.5 million at
the start of January 2010, to 35.2 million at the end of March
2017.

Figure E1i. Records added to the
National Biodiversity Network Gateway, 2004 to
2017.